Retro Diffusion Extension for Aseprite
A downloadable tool for Windows, macOS, and Linux
Rapid designing with AI
Create, change, and refine artwork in minutes.
What is Retro Diffusion?
This extension for the popular pixel art software Aseprite allows the easy installation and use of Stable Diffusion AI image generator from inside Aseprite. It also adds advanced features like smart color reduction, and text guided palette creation. In combination with the state of the art pixel model, you can design incredible pixel art pieces in record time.
You can try it out by creating an account at retrodiffusion.ai. When you sign up you will get 20 free credits to create images with. You do not need to buy credits for the Aseprite extension version. Generations times on the website may not reflect generation times on your own hardware.
!!! BEFORE PURCHASING ENSURE YOU READ THE COMPATIBILITY SECTION BELOW, THIS VERSION DOES NOT CONTAIN STANDALONE MODEL FILES !!!
I'm trying to work with itch to get the files available, but for now they are simply too large to host on the platform.
Custom pixel art AI model
Retro Diffusion comes with its own pixel art model, which returns results astronomically better than any competing model or AI. If you have tried to get Dall-e 2, Stable Diffusion, or even Midjourney to create accurate pixel art before, you know that they just don't get it.
The best part is, this model has been trained on licensed assets from Astropulse and other pixel artists with their consent.
Select the pixel art model and watch as near perfect pixel art is made in seconds!
Check out my site for more images! https://astropulse.co/#retrodiffusiongallery
Convert any image to pixel art
Using the "Neural Pixelate" tool, easily turn images into pixel art versions with style accurate colors, or choose to keep the original colors!
Transform your art
Traditionally, resizing pixel art doesn't produce good results, as it either destroys detail when downscaling, or makes the image blurry or blocky when upscaling. "Neural Resize" allows you to change the size of pixel art image and generate entirely new details.
You can also use "Neural Detail" to add higher levels of detail to simple pixel art designs.
Control Generations
Using a unique pipeline, Retro Diffusion allows you to control lighting, colors, and other image features from an ultra-simple interface.
These settings are applied in-generation, not as post processing effects. This allows the images to change and adapt to the color and lighting conditions.
Large Language Model Prompt Helper
We also leverage the abilities of a LLM to make prompting dead simple. Type anything, and it will be converted into the best format for the image generator to understand. You can even just ask for "something" and the AI will invent amazing ideas for you!
Minecraft assets
Several models have been developed specifically for Minecraft style assets, making developing good looking mods and resource packs easier than ever!
All these assets took under an hour to create, with most of the time spent generating images.
Additionally, if you enable the "Tiling" modifier, you can create beautiful seamless block textures in record time.
Game items
Generate creative and interesting game assets just by describing them, no more need for dreaded 'programmer art.'
Palettize
Using the Palettize feature, you can easily reduce the number of colors in an image, or change the colors entirely in just a couple clicks.
Built in styles
Retro Diffusion has different pixel art styles available at the click of a button. In addition to the "Game item" and "Tiling" modifiers there is:
Top-down
Front-facing
Flat shading
1-Bit
Game Consoles
Including NES, SNES, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, NeoGeo, and PlayStation styles.
These modifiers can even be applied at different strengths to achieve different styles!
Pixel Art Background Removal
Quickly and easily remove backgrounds in one click.
Compatibility
Ensure you have the latest version of Aseprite.
On setup, please make sure to read through the installation instructions thoroughly, and that you are connected to a stable wifi network (mobile hotspots will not work).
Refer to the chart below for exact compatibility information:
Learn more about your hardware and if you meet the requirements here:
System Compatibility
Don't meet the hardware requirements? Use the website and don't worry about putting strain on your own computer!
https://www.retrodiffusion.ai/
* Linux support is not guaranteed. The number of distros, environments, and the commonality of user system modifications makes assured support next to impossible. Retro Diffusion has been tested on stock Ubuntu, Mint, and Fedora. Customized versions of these distros may not be supported. If you have any issues with compatibility on Linux be sure to contact me directly via Discord.
NOTE: The first generation will take a while, as it may need to install additional models.
Performance statistics
GPU:
Nvidia GTX 1050 TI: 20 steps 512x512 (64x64 pixel model) in 2.5 minutes.
Nvidia GTX 960: 20 steps 512x512 (64x64 pixel model) in 2 minutes.
Nvidia GTX 1660 Super: 20 steps 512x512 (64x64 pixel model) in 2 minutes.
Nvidia RTX 3060: 20 steps 512x512 (64x64 pixel model) in 5 seconds.
Nvidia RTX 3090: 20 steps 512x512 (64x64 pixel model) in <2 seconds.
Radeon RX 6650 XT: 20 steps 512x512 (64x64 pixel model) in 20 seconds.
Mac M1 Pro 64gb: 20 steps 512x512 (64x64 pixel model) in 26 seconds.
Mac M2 Air 16gb: 20 steps 512x512 (64x64 pixel model) in 50 seconds.
CPU:
Intel i5-8300H: 20 steps 512x512 (64x64 pixel model) in 10 minutes.
Ryzen 2600X: 20 steps 512x512 (64x64 pixel model) in 10 minutes.
Intel i7-1065G7: 20 steps 512x512 (64x64 pixel model) in 5 minutes.
Ryzen 5800X: 20 steps 512x512 (64x64 pixel model) in <4 minutes.
Aseprite not for you?
Check out the standalone models here!
Check out the image generation website!
Future versions
Any future versions or patches of Retro Diffusion will be given to previous buyers at no additional cost. Make sure to check your email for new versions!
The current version is 10.5.0.
Previews and updates
The best place to go for any information on the current state of Retro Diffusion, or previews of upcoming content is my Twitter profile: https://twitter.com/RealAstropulse
Contact information
The best place to reach me is by joining the Retro Diffusion Discord server: https://discord.gg/retrodiffusion
Alternatively, use the contact form on my website: https://astropulse.co/#contactme
Purchase
In order to download this tool you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $65 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Development log
- Retro Diffusion Update: ControlNet-Powered Tools!55 days ago
- Retro Diffusion January Update: NEW Composition Editing Menu!98 days ago
- Retro Diffusion Update: Live Image Generation Preview, "Quality" Setting, and mo...Dec 20, 2023
- Retro Diffusion Update: Prompt Translator, New Models, Background Removal, and F...Nov 06, 2023
- Retro Diffusion Update: BIG Images, Faster Generations, QoLOct 13, 2023
- Retro Diffusion Update: "No module named ldm" Fix & Nashor Kim Item ModifierSep 29, 2023
Comments
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Alright, so this is an attempt to make a fair and balanced review. Instead of telling you whether or not you should get it, I'll give you my first takes on this software as raw data and let you decide for yourself, cheers.
Pros
Cons
Hey! Thanks for the review!
Here's some tips for tiling and portraits:
With tiling, there are two options that do different things. The "Tile X direction" and "Tile Y direction" can be made visible by toggling "Show advanced options", these settings mathematically force the image to tile. This can be great when you need something to tile that normally wouldn't, but its also very heavy handed and can make weird stuff.
The second option is to enable the "Tiling" modifier. This is a specialized image generator that has been trained on tiling textures, stuff like Minecraft blocks. It works best at 16x16 or 32x32.
For portraits, typically putting something like "A close up portrait of ___" or "A headshot of ___" will do the trick. For example here is "A close up portrait of a fox monk" with all other settings at default values:
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On speed and CPU usage:
AI image creation is actually one of the most complex tasks computers can do, when you boil it down, its essentially solving differential equations with billions of inputs and outputs. Way more demanding than any AAA game, or even most 3D rendering software, even for small pixel art images. This is why the compatibility section is so strict.
We've managed to get the requirements down to a 4GB GPU, which is pretty impressive given the size of the models and the complexity of the computations. You can find system requirements and some benchmark data above on the main page.
Again thanks for the review, and I hope it helps people with the decision to buy or not!
Thanks for the feedback, some very useful info. And it's a fascinating thing on the CPU usage, it makes a lot of sense given the nature of AI. Keep up the great work. :)
Hi! This looks really cool. Can it do isometric assets?
Yep! There is an isometric model in the "Modifier" section :)
https://imgur.com/a/t17Azsa
Good to know. Is there a way to use a custom color palette? Without that, it'd be kind of hard to get a consistent style
Oh wait it says there is on the page, my bad. I just didn't see one in the web demo
Hi, I'd love to get a look at this tool, but being Brazilian is hard haha. Any chance you'll have an Easter sale?
There is a sale going on right now!
Sweet, just got it! Is there any way I could get the files for the standalone models as well?
Send me a message on Discord with proof of purchase and I'll send you a code to get the model files :)
thank you! Will do
Hi, what exactly do you mean by:
!!! BEFORE PURCHASING ENSURE YOU READ THE COMPATIBILITY SECTION BELOW, THIS VERSION DOES NOT CONTAIN STANDALONE MODEL FILES !!!
The compatibility section does not appear to discuss the model files best I can tell. If the model files can't be hosted on itch.io, how does one get them in order to run this 100% locally? Are they automatically downloaded upon the first generation run?
The model files required by the extension are downloaded automatically, but these files are only usable inside of Aseprite. If you need model files for use outside of Aseprite you can either purchase the extension through Gumroad, or contact me with proof of purchase and I'll send a redeemable code.
Is AMD GPU support for windows completely discarded or are you looking into it in the future?
What are the datasets you trained this model on, do you own the copyrights or have permission, if not, why are you selling it ?
All of the training data we use is given to us by artists for the purpose of training, a plurality of the dataset is even my own artwork.
They dont have permission
You can literally read my post above, stating that I had permission for each image we used in training.
Hi, I have 16gb ram. I'm using RTX 3050ti 4gb vram. Is 4gb vram enough for model? How much steps can I go with 4gb vram?
4gb is on the low end, but you will be able to make 64x64 images.
not gonna buy cause it would break me, but it looks very well trained congrats
Thank you! You should check out the site, its a bit more affordable and you can even try it for free :) https://www.retrodiffusion.ai
if i may suggest something, please make it so unless setting such as prompts, size and reference image are changed, it does not consume even more credits, cause i tried and i basically spended all of my credits and didnt got anything close to what i thought, and i cant reroll or tweak some simple values to try again.
Every time an image is generated it cost us on the server-side, even if no settings were changed, so we can't make that an option unfortunately. Sorry you didn't get what you were expecting. What were you trying to create?
Hi, this looks really cool. Seeing the storage on the hardware requirement, I assume the paid version is local. I have a few questions :
- Is there things that can only be done on the paid Aseprite version and not on the web version ?
- It seems the paid version gives you a license key that you can use to redeem tokens for the web version, right ? How many tokens ?
- 16GB RAM is recommended or a minimum ?
- I assume there's no refund policy, just in case...
- In your performance stats, what is the image size between "512x512" and "64x64 pixel model" ? (ex: Intel i5-8300H: 20 steps 512x512 (64x64 pixel model) in 10 minutes.)
- Does the paid Aseprite version has an "input image" feature like the web version ?
The thing is I have an intel-5 CPU, an integrated intel iris Xe GPU and 8GB RAM so I'm not sure I'd be able to run it locally. But I'd prefer to have a one time payment rather than constantly buying credits for the web version.
Hey! The paid version does run locally. The goal is for the web and local versions to maintain as many identical features as possible, right now the web is slightly behind but we're updating it this week.
There aren't any tokens with the local version.
16GB RAM is a minimum for CPU only generations. If you have a capable GPU you only need 8GB of RAM.
There isn't an explicit refund policy, but we provide refunds to anyone who asks.
The pixel art image size for a 512x512 generation is 64x64. Both the extension and the web version handle all the size conversions behind the scenes for you.
All versions have an image input option.
Based on the hardware you mentioned, you would not be able to run it. Intel iris Xe is not a dedicated gpu, but rather integrated graphics on your cpu. You must have a dedicated GPU with at least 4GB of VRAM. You can refer to this system requirements chart for more detailed compatibility requirements:
thank you for the answers